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I remember when I was in middle school (late 80's) and we had to write all our papers in cursive. And neatness COUNTED. Teachers would count off if you forgot to cross a t or dot an i and so on. I mean teacher's back then actually had the time to read what you wrote and check your spelling and grammar and how you formed your letters! All that in addition to grading what you actually wrote. Woah!
Now I have a kid in high school and a kid in middle school. Their assignments are done on the computer and emailed or printed out. We rarely get any sort of critique back other than "please elaborate" or "could be longer". (My boys tend to write the bare minimum = complete opposite of their mom of course!) There's nothing relating to their spelling or grammar mistakes, no red circles around words spelled incorrectly or forgotten periods or three little lines under letters which should have been capitalized. It's always pretty obvious to me that the teachers skimmed it, wrote down a comment, slapped a letter grade on it, and that was it.
I correct my kids work, and of course this bugs the heck out of my kids, but the teachers these days just do not have the time to be as detailed and meticulous as they once did. Teachers are so short on time the notes, letters, and emails sent home to parents are chock-full of spelling errors and poor grammar and words used incorrectly. Teachers are too rushed today.
In my career in public accounting, I spent far too much of my time correcting the English of my staff. From basic spelling mistakes to poor grammar and bad style. My wife, who also worked in public accounting, went so far as to buy and distribute "Elements of Style" to her staff. Teachers and parents may be forgiving of errors but clients rarely are. They see it as an example of sloppy and poor quality work.
i hear people on the radio complaining that people arent learning cursive anymore. i dont really know why i learned it to begin with. im sure there were more useful things that learning to write in a way that i will never need.
like grammar, spelling and speaking like an adult.
In my career in public accounting, I spent far too much of my time correcting the English of my staff. From basic spelling mistakes to poor grammar and bad style. My wife, who also worked in public accounting, went so far as to buy and distribute "Elements of Style" to her staff. Teachers and parents may be forgiving of errors but clients rarely are. They see it as an example of sloppy and poor quality work.
Thank you--both for doing this and for pointing it out.
As an employer, I would prefer to hire only those who could speak and write as an adult. I fear that it is nearly impossible to find an adequate applicant pool anymore.
Just thought I'd throw my 2 cents in...I went to summer camp (1980s) with a girl from a traditional Virginia family - cotillions and all. She went to private school and not allowed to be taught cursive because "it was inappropriate for girls".
I am glad I learned how to read and write cursive. All through school and, shoot, even 10 years ago, I would never have imagined how much I use my ability to read cursive from historical documents.
My only concern/question is do people who don't learn how to write cursive really end up not being able to read it?
i hear people on the radio complaining that people arent learning cursive anymore. i dont really know why i learned it to begin with. im sure there were more useful things that learning to write in a way that i will never need.
like grammar, spelling and speaking like an adult.
Hmmm....then why aren't you using the mechanics part of grammar?? Also I don't think third graders need to learn how to "speak like an adult" JUST quite yet! And as the reason WHY you learned it...hmmm....
...I went to summer camp (1980s) with a girl from a traditional Virginia family - cotillions and all. She went to private school and not allowed to be taught cursive because "it was inappropriate for girls".
...
I grew up in Highland Park - the Park Cities - in Dallas, TX. It was very "old-school" and very affluent. Lots of old money and hard-core old fashioned values. Girls had to wear skirts or dresses - no pants. We also had to wear bows in our hair. I'm not kidding. We had cotillion and the schools were very rigid and conservative. I have never heard anyone imply that cursive was inappropriate for girls! Wow! In fact - the feeling I always had while attending school there (I was born there and lived there until I was about 15) was that it was more important for girls to have good handwriting than for boys. (It was more important for boys to be better athletes...)
I'm stunned! I'm shocked! I can't go on reading!
I thought the title of this thread was a joke!
There's a whole generation of people who don't write cursive?
How do they read the Declaration of Independence?
How do they read any document pre-typwriter and Western Union?
You mean in another 10 yrs. or so I will be able to write secret messages just by writing in cursive?
My world has just flipped upside down! What's next?
Only teaching phoenetic spelling? Doing away with spelling altogether?
I am only 16 years old, but I got taught cursive in 2nd grade. After that, the district stopped requiring cursive (Eventually everywhere did, I have a friend in the UK who's older then me and even he wasn't taught cursive) and the time normally spent learning cursive was replaced with "silent reading time" We already had time devoted to reading, but this was added on so the teacher's could grade paper's while we silently read. I have 5 younger brother's and sister's, one only a year younger then me, and none of them can read or write cursive. It's a shame, I don't know how many situation's I've been in, in history class where I've had to read cursive to do the lesson, I remember the teacher passing the printed off section in Roman font so that the other kid's in my class could read it because they were never taught cursive. It's something that unless you teach your own kids now'a'days your child wont know it. It will eventually just fade out, and everyone who knew it will pass away.
Interesting, our most important documents are written in cursive and soon no one will be around to translate them. I guess we can hope wikipedia translated them right. Anyhow, It doesn't really matter if everything is written in print or typed on a computer, people need to be able to read and write cursive.
Our district teaches both beginning in elementary school. As I stated earlier, I'm a big fan of script because I have two left-handed children who routinely flip letters when printing. Keyboarding is great, but it's not a truly effective replacement for hand-writing, especially for note-taking in a lecture setting.
Why not? I've always taken notes on my laptop with my braille display set up in my spoken English classes. In my sign language classes, my notetakers take notes on a laptop and then email me the notes right after class. It works beautifully.
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Also I don't think third graders need to learn how to "speak like an adult" JUST quite yet! And as the reason WHY you learned it...hmmm....
Blowing my mind!
